Interview: Susan Hanley on SharePoint and Knowledge Management

I found Susan Hanley recently while I was researching SharePoint governance. She’s co-authored two books on the subject; I found them appealing and universal. I thought, “if she’s half as friendly in real life as she is in her books, I have to know her.” My gut instinct didn’t fail me. Read on, Dear Reader, and judge for yourself.

You have a strong background in knowledge management (KM).  Why did you choose this field? When did you move more into the content management (CM) discipline — or do you feel you have?

I didn’t really choose KM — it kind of chose me based on a job assignment. Of course, I now say that my interests, education and background play nicely into this discipline, but I didn’t really choose — I got a project assignment that stuck!  I have a psychology undergraduate degree and an MBA in information systems management. At a crucial moment in my career, my manager asked me on behalf of our CEO to work on a KM initiative.

I was with a global consulting firm (American Management Systems) and our CEO felt that we needed to build communities of practice across the company to more effectively share best practices in our core disciplines. I was asked to head up the initiative and it turned out to be an incredible opportunity.  

The assignment happened early enough in the establishment of KM as a discipline that I got the opportunity to meet and network with some of the people responsible for the leading KM initiatives in the world. I was able to bring some of the early KM thought leaders in to AMS to help us learn and we were able to get on the radar of analyst firms like Gartner. We even had a Harvard case study written about our initiative. 

I have always viewed KM as being more about people and processes than about technology, but as the technology has evolved, the results have enabled the discipline to persist. I don’t think I’ve moved to content management at all — I think it’s all fundamentally about bringing the right information to the right people at the right time so while my focus these days tends to be on implementing technology solutions; the solutions all have a KM objective.

Why and how does SharePoint motivate you? How did you come to be involved in the SharePoint story?

I was introduced to SharePoint before it was SharePoint — when it was still called Tahoe. At that time, my company had become well-known for doing a good job at KM. We were a Lotus Notes shop, however — we weren’t using Microsoft products. A local Microsoft team showed Tahoe to us. When they completed their presentation they asked our opinion. They basically tried to sell us on speeds and feeds, not business outcomes, so we told them we weren’t sure that they “got KM.”  We took a “watch and see” attitude. 

In 2000, I left AMS for Plural, a small Microsoft consulting firm. I was asked to head up the portals and collaboration practice. Plural was later acquired by Dell and for the next three years, I led that practice for Dell, implementing solutions pretty much exclusively on the Microsoft platform. I also represented first Plural and then Dell on Microsoft’s Partner Advisory Council (PAC) for Portals and Collaboration.

During that time, I was able to watch Microsoft and the SharePoint team start to talk about SharePoint’s business outcomes, not just technical features. And I definitely now think SharePoint evolved as a product and technology enabler for effective KM solutions.